As stipulated by the Constitution, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia is the highest representative body and the holder of legislative power. The National Assembly is also in charge of monitoring the executive branch. In practice, citizens’ interest in the parliament is declining, and the lack of trust in the National Assembly is associated with a collapse of confidence in democracy. The centralization of power, one-sided narratives widespread in public space and domineering the media as a whole contribute to the portrayal of the President of the Republic as the only authority in charge of all issues and topics, regardless of the constitutional system. This significantly degrades the position of the parliament. In addition to the centralization of power in the hands of the executive, the Parliament faces a number of structural weaknesses and poor internal practices.

When it comes to the legislative function, during the last decade, laws would most often “speed” through the Assembly, without significant involvement of MPs and with frequent and unjustified recourse to urgent procedures. Committees and plenary sessions were often hastily agreed upon, with the agenda of the plenary sessions being announced at the last minute, leaving MPs little time to prepare for the debate on the acts that are to be on the agenda and to draft amendments. In the absence of the annual work plan of the National Assembly, the problem of quality preparation of MPs for work is even clearer.

Graph 1: How many days ahead have the sittings been scheduled in the 11th convocation of the Parliament

From 2005 to 2010, the Government proposed on average about 62% of laws and other acts, and from 2016 to 2020, that share increased to as much as 97% of all adopted laws. This growth is a consequence of the practice of overlooking law proposals made by opposition MPs when creating an agenda for the plenary session. So, although the MPs from the opposition have the right by the letter of the law to initiate and change the laws, in practice they failed. In addition, the ruling majority used various obstructive practices (filibustering), such as submitting numerous amendments to laws lacking truly relevant content in order to limit the time for opposition MPs to speak. This trivialized the parliamentary debate itself.

The monitoring role of the parliament is most often realized through the work of the committees and through parliamentary questions.

In practice, the actual power of the National Assembly committees is limited by the will of the ruling majority, as well as the capacities and resources of their members and staff, which often do not match the government’s. The structure of a committee in the Serbian Assembly reflects the composition of the Parliament, proportionally representing the parliamentary groups in relation to the total number of committee members. Unlike the fine practice that was in place in the first decade of 2000, the distribution of seats in parliamentary committees between the majority and the opposition was changed to the detriment of opposition MPs. Finally, the functioning of parliamentary committees is in most cases characterized by a general lack of efficiency. Committee members do their jobs formally and hastily, instead of a fundamental approach to the topics that are on the agenda.

Parliamentary questions, in oral or written form, obligate the representative of the Government to answer. Although the use of this mechanism has increased compared to 2018, in practice, asking questions does not significantly contribute to the quality of Parliament’s monitoring function. The second type of parliamentary questions are those that relate to the current topic. In the last seven years, they have been completely neglected in practice.

In Serbia, a tradition of holding a public hearing before adoption of systemic acts does not exist. Nonetheless, when speaking about public hearings it’s important to note that them being regularly held is not enough for it to be a true contribution to the monitoring role of the parliament. What is crucial is that parliamentary committees actually take the findings from these hearings seriously and follow them through. The format of the conclusions adopted after a public hearing is also of great importance.

Commissions and committees of inquiry, as the next monitoring mechanisms initiated by committees, are used even less frequently in practice. Intended as ad hoc bodies, they allow the Parliament to establish facts on certain matters of public interest or important events or aspects of the work of the executive. In practice, these mechanisms yielded no concrete results.

Despite a solid constitutional system stipulating a strong legislature, the position and influence of parliament over the past decade has been hindered by the prevailing centralization of power in the hands of the executive, making it largely dependent on government decisions, especially the President. In addition, as a result of the increasing abuse of mechanisms and obstructions, the Assembly has become a mere façade instead of a temple of democracy, which is a role assigned to it by the legislative framework.

Trends

View all

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Degradation of the role of parliament with the growing deparliamentarization of society

Grade

Negative

The parliament has never fully realized its potential influence in the political system. The growing trends of presidentialization and centralization of power in the hands of the executive, especially in the post 2014 period, have greatly contributed to further disruption of the separation and balance of power. That resulted in the degradation of parliament, with continuous, indirect pressure on the parliament to act as dictated by the ruling party. The simulation of parliamentary mechanisms and processes has led to the distortion of the role of parliament.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Reduced use of the emergency procedure in passing laws

Grade

Positive

We note a trend of reduced use of the urgent procedure for the adoption of laws. This is emphasized especially when viewing all laws adopted in parliament together, including ratifications of international agreements, which are most often adopted by regular procedure. However, the urgent procedure is still used to a very large extent for the adoption of new laws and amendments to existing ones. Frequent and unjustified use of the urgent procedure in passing laws contributes to the adoption of deficient legal solutions. This reduces the quality of the legislative process and thus the quality of life of citizens. The quality of the legislative process is also diminished by scheduling committee and plenary sessions in short time-frames, as well as omitting laws and other acts proposed by opposition and minority MPs from the parliamentary agenda.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Weakening of effective parliamentary control

Grade

Negative

The trend of collapsing parliamentary control and monitoring of the executive power has been noticeable since 2014. The control mechanisms are used less and less, and there is a formalistic approach to their use, which makes the process more difficult. There is also a noticeable lack of transparency regarding the work and achievements of control mechanisms, especially survey committees and commissions. Parliamentary control mechanisms have been reduced to superficially filling out forms. Their essential purpose became maintaining the semblance of functional parliamentary supervision, promoting the ruling regime, and defying the opposition and non-parliamentary actors in society.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Violation of parliamentary rules and procedures, narrowing the space for pluralism and parliamentary dialogue

Grade

Negative

There is noticeably less space for pluralism of opinion and dialogue, as well as for the effective involvement of civil society and citizens in the work of the parliament. Bypassing and violating the rules, procedures and mechanisms, as well as preventing the participation of the opposition in the work of the plenum, all done by the parliamentary majority, culminated in a boycott of the parliament by the opposition in 2019. A slight change in the direction of greater formal compliance with internal procedures and provisions of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly was noted in 2020. This was due to pressure from the domestic and international public. However, substantial progress is still lacking in the proactive use of procedures and mechanisms that would contribute to the effective work of parliament in practice. The pronounced dominance of unanimity in the parliamentary plenum was visibly accentuated after the elections held in 2020, with the formation of a new de facto one-party parliamentary convocation. Only 7 of the current 250 MPs do not belong to the ruling majority.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Increasingly unacceptable rhetoric and abuse of the parliamentary rostrum

Grade

Negative

The trend of worsening of the atmosphere in the plenum due to the inappropriate behavior of MPs especially contributed to the degradation of the reputation of the parliament. The absence of sanctions for the abuse of the parliamentary rostrum and the unacceptable behavior of the MPs is obvious. Their rhetoric is often marked by elements of hate speech and attacks on representatives of the opposition, the media, the judiciary, civil society and others. Even though the Code of Ethics was adopted in late 2020, no improvement is visible.

Recommendations

View all

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Improve the functioning of the parliament and ensure that all its functions are fully realized

A functional parliament that fundamentally fulfills its role requires a systematic, consistent and effective application of all procedures and mechanisms at its disposal.

Regular adoption and consistent implementation of the annual work program of the Assembly, stronger role and responsibility of parliamentary committees, as well as timely engagement of parliamentary mechanisms on key current issues of importance to citizens would contribute to strengthening the systemic approach and effective functioning of the parliament.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Improve the legislative process

A higher degree of participation of MPs and parliamentary committees in the legislative process, including the opinion or comments of the professional and wider community on the proposals on the parliamentary agenda is necessary.

It would contribute to ensuring substantial consideration of proposed legal solutions and their effects in all segments of society. This would prevent, as far as possible, the adoption of unfavorable, discriminatory or contradictory legal solutions. A more meaningful engagement of MPs and parliamentary committees would contribute to overcoming the widespread image of the Assembly reduced to a mere administrative service of the Government or the President of the Republic (rubber stamp parliament).

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Consistently and effectively implement parliamentary control

To ensure substantial monitoring of the parliament, existing mechanisms must be used proactively and consistently. In that sense, it is necessary for the parliament to regularly and consistently request and consider the reports from the ministries and the government, to use its decisions to obligate the executive power to take concrete actions in order to fulfill the recommendations of independent institutions, as well as to continuously monitor its responsiveness and demand that the government be responsible for its results.

In addition, the parliament must ensure proactive cooperation with independent institutions, provide all preconditions for their independent, autonomous and effective functioning. This would be achieved by proactively seeking and using the opinions and findings of independent institutions in its work, and regularly and timely reviewing their reports. Adopting conclusions based on those reports would contribute to the fulfillment of their recommendations and the improvement of the situation in the areas of their competence.

PARLIAMENT OF SERBIA

Encourage pluralism and the development of parliamentary dialogue

It is necessary to provide preconditions for pluralism of opinion and the development of a culture of dialogue in parliament.

In that sense, the chairman is obligated to prevent and impartially sanction insults, attacks, as well as any other inappropriate behavior of deputies by consistent application of mechanisms provided by the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure and the Code of Conduct of Deputies, in order to urgently stop abuse of the parliament rostrum. The amendment of the Code of Conduct for MPs in accordance with international standards, which were taken into account when drafting this document, would also contribute to this.

Parliament of Serbia

Tara Tepavac

Trends

Degradation of the role of parliament with the growing deparliamentarization of society

Reduced use of the emergency procedure in passing laws

Weakening of effective parliamentary control

Violation of parliamentary rules and procedures, narrowing the space for pluralism and parliamentary dialogue

Increasingly unacceptable rhetoric and abuse of the parliamentary rostrum

Recommendations

Improve the functioning of the parliament and ensure that all its functions are fully realized

Improve the legislative process

Consistently and effectively implement parliamentary control

Encourage pluralism and the development of parliamentary dialogue

Elections in Serbia 2008-2020

Political parties in Serbia